Google Easter Egg Makes AT&T Look Foolish

Search for "tilt" on the iPhone version of Google, and you get a tilted search results page. Screenshot: Michael Calore/Wired.com

If you do a search for the word “tilt” on Google, and you’re using an iPhone, you get a nifty Easter egg.

The search results screen that Google shows you is tilted a few degrees off perpendicular, as shown in the screenshot here.

Funny, right?

It only works with the mobile version of Google, and may not work with every phone (we got the trick working with an iPhone and a Motorola Defy, but not a Samsung Nexus S).

But there’s a hidden joke inside this Easter egg. For at least some searches, the results page includes a sponsored ad for AT&T’s Tilt — a smartphone that launched about 4 years ago. If you click on the ad, you get taken to an AT&T page that states “The AT&T Tilt(TM) you’re searching for is no longer available.” Instead, it shows you couple of outdated feature phones and a refurbished 3G modem.

That’s right: AT&T is paying Google when people click on ads for a phone it doesn’t sell any more.